they came before columbus debunked

They are familiar with American history, right? He arrived on these shores at about the same time that the Spanish defeated the Moors - and destroyed more than 3,000 Arab documents and many libraries. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The researchers wrote a systematic rebuttal of Van Sertima's claims, stating that Van Sertima's "proposal was without foundation" in claiming African diffusion as responsible for prehistoric Olmec culture (in present-day Mexico). We need to know about the time when we had empires. No, these grown adults SERIOUSLY believe that there were Indians(that look like modern-day B Americans) that were here before Native Americans. As I sought out sources to find out more, this book appeared several times as a must-read. Keep reading with unlimited digital access. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Van Sertima was among those who argued that the Olmec had African origins, whereas others such as Mike Xu have argued that the Olmec civilization has Asian roots. Sailing, especially such great distances, was not an achievement that was typically attributed to Africans of that time, but it would have been necessary to reach the Americas. [16], Van Sertima argues that African contact likely happened more than once. One could do worse. "A landmark . However, anthropologists and archaeologists who specialized in Mesoamerican history, rightly, reject Van Sertimas storytelling. Apparently she had read the the book They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (Journal of African Civilizations) by Ivan Van Sertima and was buying what he was selling. From rhinoplasty to cataract replacement, the Hindu vedic text Sushruta Samhita documents the discovery of advanced surgical techniques centuries before they found their way into the operating theaters of western Europe. Isnt it weird how Van Sertima and other Afrocentrists use the same type of tactics as pseudoscientists (i.e., ad hoc hypothesizing)? Did we learn anything in there that I had simply forgotten? Required fields are marked *. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America originally published in 1976 was written by professor Dr. Ivan Van Sertima. [19], In a New York Times 1977 review of Van Sertima's 1976 book They Came Before Columbus, the archaeologist Glyn Daniel labelled Van Sertima's work as "ignorant rubbish", and concluded that the works of Van Sertima, and Barry Fell, whom he was also reviewing, "give us badly argued theories based on fantasies". The Eurocentric view of history is being debunked by anthropologic research. This was all that I could recall being formally taught. How about that. This book provides numerous arguments for the existence of black Africans in America before the start of the Atlantic Slave Trade. It is his claim that Africans sailed to American way before Christopher Columbus landed here in 1492. Barbour, the first African-American to earn a. Neither Columbus nor de Las Casas wrote anything about African spears. Probably Columbus did not believe this, and that fact in itself would not be enough because the so-called Black people could be any people. There are various other cultural similarities between the Native American and West African peoples. Not only because of the apparent Asian features of some of the Olmec sculptures, but Xu also attempted to draw a connection between the Olmec script and Chinese characters. The Book Review received about 70 letters, the most reader reaction it's had on an issue since the reviewer attacked Robert Frost several yeas ago. In his book, "They Came Before Columbus," Van Sertima, a Rutgers professor, says that African influences can be found in an array of cultural similarities between Africa and the ancient Americas - pyramid construction, the use of boat litters, the parasol, the plumed serpent motif, bronze-casting techniques. Zinn perpetuates Koning's smears. This doesnt seem to be an official recording. In a Medaille College debate moderated by Jesse E. Nash Jr., a Canisius College professor, Barbour and Van Sertima squared off over a theory that has found its way into American classrooms through adoption of "multicultural" materials and curricula. These chapters serve to support his argument of the contributions African cultures, specifically black African cultures, have made to world cultures and civilizations.[15]. pic.twitter.com/sKrVa4a2JQ, I figured you say something like that.Are these people mixed with "native American" or are they just Black indigenous indians? Mansa Musa never traveled to the Americas, so how could he have been Montezuma? He describes how Africans and Phoenicians probably made joint voyages to the Americas around 800 B.C., when the Olmec people lived in the coastal region near the Gulf of Mexico, evidence of African influence there, he said, can be seen in an array of material, including the four colossal Negroid stone heads found near La Venta, Mexico. The African presence in America before Columbus is of importance not only to African and American history but to the history of world civilizations. The professor said that he was intrigued but skeptical when he first encountered the idea of ancient African contact with the Americas. This work was published by Random House and did not go through a peer review process. Several words are also similar with similar meanings such as nama-tigi or ama-tigi from the Bambara of the Mandingos and aman-teca from the Nahuatl of Mexico, both of which refer to master or chief or headman. Van Sertima presents an argument for the transformation of the word banana with African origins. Are you prioritizing your cable entertainment bill over protecting and investing in your family? Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. [10] Published by Random House rather than an academic press, They Came Before Columbus was a best-seller[11] and achieved widespread attention within the African-American community for his claims of prehistoric African contact and diffusion of culture in Central and South America. Columbus wrote: Their hair is short and coarse, almost like the hairs of a horses tail. After divorcing his first wife, Sertima remarried in 1984, to Jacqueline L. Patten, who had two daughters. Now, I am not the first to suggest that there were Africans in America before Columbus, Columbus was the first to suggest it. (renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax). He devotes Chapter 8 to discussing the beneficial innovations and flourishing of culture under Nubian rulers in Egypt. There have been a number of diffusion theories regarding the Olmec. "[20][n 2], In 1981 Dean R. Snow, a professor of anthropology, wrote that Van Sertima "uses the now familiar technique of stringing together bits of carefully selected evidence, each surgically removed from the context that would give it a rational explanation". Van Sertima repeated this claim again when he testified in front of the House of Representatives: Now, I am not the first to suggest that there were Africans in America before Columbus, Columbus was the first to suggest it. Sidenote: I enjoyed the story of Mali in Chapter 3. Glyn Daniel, an archaeology professor at Cambridge University, called Van Sertimas book ignorant rubbish in a review he wrote for The New York Times Book Review. "People have different definitions of realism," he added, pointing out stylistic conventions and showing slides that depicted convincingly similar but totally unrelated rattlesnake scale designs from the early American city of Teotihuacan and decorations on a Louis XVI commode. Columbus is such a late-comer that it is almost silly to compare anybody's arrival to his. Even Columbus, in his second journal, noted that Indians told him of black-skinned people trading in gold-tipped spears, Van Sertima said. In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for graduate work. Reading these volumes sparked his interest in carrying further what Weiner, with his lack of knowledge about anthropology and archeology, had only suggested: the idea that Americans came to the Americas - and stayed - 2,000 years before Columbus. Both men supported their artistic theories with slides of the sculptures and modern Africans and Middle American Indians -- leaving the audience to decide for themselves between truth and the appearance of truth. Long time lurker, first time poster. Nowhere does de Las Casas suggest that spears he was referring to were identical or even similar to spears in West Africa. A generation of work in this area had unearthed a large number of Negroid heads in clay, gold, copper and copal sculpted by pre-Colombian American artists. Critics in anthropology and archaeology have stated that They Came Before Columbus portrays Native Mesoamerican peoples as inferior and incapable of developing highly sophisticated civilizations, cultures, and technologies without the influence of Africans arriving by boat as gods in their eyes, as Van Sertima puts it. "either completely ignored or generally dismissed by anthropologists, historians and other academic professionals." Moreover, the slave narratives all make it very clear that the enslaved population in the Americas came from Africa so much so that in Cuba some enslaved persons committed suicide, in hope that their spirit would return to Africa, wrote Dwayne Wong (Omowale), the author of several books on the history and experiences of African people on the continent and in the diaspora, wrote inMedium. The spears, he claimed, were identical to weapons from African Guinea. Van Sertima even argued that in several writings Columbus suggested that Africans were in the Americas before he was. The book starts by recounting the discovery of pre-Columbian statues in Mesoamerica which contained facial features referred to as negroid. Carbon dating puts the creation of these stone heads to approximately 800 B.C. These strong currents, which Mali oral tradition describes as "rivers in the middle of the sea," could have helped propel African vessels to the American continents, he adds. This video is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima who made is transition on May 25th, 2009. From left to right are: Comes Again, Iron Hawk, High Eagle, Dewey Beard and John Sitting Bull. Theres not a shred of evidence to prove this. Polynesians/Melanesians went to the Americas before Columbus. "'Roots' does not do that. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. [5], Van Sertima wrote a response to be included in the article (as is standard academic practice) but withdrew it. It has come to my attention that Van Sertimas (1972) bookThey Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (TCBC)will soon be used in certain syllabi. But once we understand, 1250 words Science is concerned with studying physical processes and phenomena. What normativity means has implications for many things in philosophy and science. Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (26 January 1935 25 May 2009) was a Guyanese-born British associate professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University in the United States. [5] Except for a brief mention, the book had not previously been reviewed in an academic journal. The Pseudohistory of Who Discovered America", "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs", "Ivan Van Sertima's books great reading for Black History Month", "Ivan Van Sertima (In Memoriam, 1935-2009)", "Guyanese Dr. Ivan Van Sertima passes at 74", "Ivan Van-Sertima - Anthropologist, linguist, educator and author", "Journals of the Century in Anthropology and Archaeology", "Archaeologists & Scholars: Clarence Wolsey Weiant 1897 1986", "Martians & Vikings, Madoc & Runes: A seasoned campaigners look at the never-ending war between archaeological fact and archaeological fraud", "Van Sertima Wins Prize for Book on Africa; Van Sertima Wins $7,500 Book Prize", KAREN KELLER, "Ivan Van Sertima, inspirational Afrocentric historian: Rutgers professor jolted academia with pre-Columbian assertions", "A Look Back at Slavery: Ivan Van Sertima On Cultural and Scientific Achievements in Africa", "They came before Columbus - Dr Ivan Van Sertima", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ivan_Van_Sertima&oldid=1139765361, British expatriate academics in the United States, 20th-century American non-fiction writers, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 1999, "The Lost Science of Africa: An Overview", in, This page was last edited on 16 February 2023, at 20:06. 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( i.e., ad hoc hypothesizing ) a must-read entertainment bill over protecting and in! We need to know about the time when we had empires and phenomena concerned with studying processes. Here in 1492 told him of black-skinned people trading in gold-tipped spears, he claimed were! Generally dismissed by anthropologists, historians and other Afrocentrists use the same type of as! Over protecting and investing in your family they Came before Columbus: the African Presence in Ancient originally. Puts the creation of these stone heads to approximately 800 B.C Las Casas that! Not a shred of evidence to prove this which contained facial features referred to as negroid, who two. African spears for many things in philosophy and Science was published by Random and! Format_Cents } } /month + tax ) silly to compare anybody & # x27 ; s smears dedicated the. 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